Contamination of the environment is a growing concern in the United States and in the world. As a result, there have been many inventions which have tried to effect the safe storage of hazardous waste such as radionuclides, hazardous metals, soluble contaminants, medical waste, and other hazardous materials.
Geological disposal of these wastes is one common approach. Typically, these wastes are contained by providing multiple levels of various types of physical barriers surrounding the hazardous waste to prevent migration into the environment. The barriers can include, for example, waste containers, vaults, engineered backfill materials, and barriers mats. Each subsequent barrier is designed to contain the hazardous material should the earlier barrier fail. Some of the previous inventions include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,464,463, 4,321,158, 3,988,258, and 3,274,784. While all the aforementioned patents for hazardous material barriers may perform satisfactorily in specific situations, there is room for improvement in the art.